Treasury opens public consultation on credit and debit card withholdings

The General Directorate of Taxation of the Ministry of Finance opened a public consultation on the draft reform of Resolution No. MH-DGT-RES-0048-2025, which regulates the use of the informative return form for withholdings by intermediaries for credit and debit card operations, regarding both value-added tax (VAT) and selective consumption tax (ISU). The notice was published in La Gaceta No. 175 on Thursday, September 17, 2026, page 3, with the official reference IN202601120912, and grants ten business days for interested parties to express their views.

The notice is based on the second paragraph of Article 174 of the Code of Tax Norms and Procedures, a regulation that obliges the Tax Administration to submit its projects to consultation with representative interest entities before their issuance. The first publication of the notice occurred on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, in La Gaceta No. 174, page 13; therefore, the ten-business-day period runs from that date.

The document is signed by Miguel Ángel Solís Sánchez, General Director of Taxation and Competent Tax Authority, in San José at three o’clock on July fourteen, two thousand twenty-six.

Who can provide feedback and through which channel

The call is addressed to representative entities of general, corporate, or diffuse interests—that is, to the guilds and organizations that group the subjects affected by the regulation.

• Observations must be expressed in writing.
• They must be sent to the electronic address notificaintelige@hacienda.go.cr.
• The deadline is ten business days starting from the first publication of the notice.
• The complete project is available on the website https://www.hacienda.go.cr/ProyectosConsultaPublica.html, in the “Projects under Public Consultation” section of the General Directorate of Taxation.

The form under review

The regulation subject to the reform is titled “Use of the informative return form ‘Detail of withholdings for intermediaries, for credit and debit card operations - VAT and ISU’”, identified by number MH-DGT-RES-0048-2025.

This is the resolution that establishes the form through which intermediaries report to the Tax Administration the withholdings made on operations carried out with credit and debit cards, for both VAT and ISU. The published project does not detail the content of the proposed changes in the notice, which must be consulted in the text available on the Ministry of Finance website.

Scope for businesses and financial entities

Due to the subject matter it regulates, the reform directly affects two groups of obligated parties: the intermediaries who perform the withholdings—financial entities and payment processors—and the merchants who receive card payments and are affected by the details of their operations.

• Parties obligated to withhold: financial and payment intermediaries operating with credit and debit cards.
• Taxes involved: VAT and ISU.
• Formal obligation: submission of the informative return detailing withholdings.
• Parties invited to provide input: entities representing general, corporate, or diffuse interests.

The General Directorate of Taxation is the department of the Ministry of Finance responsible for the administration and collection of taxes, and its resolutions are mandatory for compliance in the issuance of administrative acts.

Closing

The public consultation is the final formal stage before the reform becomes final; therefore, the observations submitted by merchant guilds, banks, and payment processors may modify the form they must use in their returns. For the affected merchants and financial entities, the period of ten business days from the publication on September 16 is the only window to influence the text before it enters into force.

Source: La Gaceta, No. 175 of September 17, 2026, Miscellaneous Documents — Finance, p. 3 (official reference: IN202601120912).